Friday, September 30, 2011

The Melting Pot is my all time favorite restaurant. I have personally eaten there many times and at several locations. The specialize in high class fondue meals. A typical meal has many options, but usually starts with a cheese fondue course, then a salad (not the ordinary of course), an entree course, and then a chocolate fondue dessert. Unfortunately I didn't take many photos that bring this meal justice, but here are a few.

Pictured here is one of their salads, this one with shrimp, citrus, and pineapple. The second picture has a glimpse of some of the entree items. The third is an overview of a few of the delicious sauces that make everything so good. I think everyone should try this restaurant even though it is a bit pricey. Oh, and don't do the oil, do the mojo... You'll see.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

So for this weeks assignment post I'm supposed to talk about our speeches last week. In short I do think that the group did well as a whole. There were of course some better than others, but then again some people have done a lot more speaking than others. And then there was the way we did our speeches. I really enjoyed the constant rotation of the speakers and the ease of flow it allowed. I think that it helped those who might have been a bit more uneasy with the spotlight directly on them. One thing from that which needed help though was the introduction transitions.

At first I believe everyone was confused on the assignment. Its not often that speech's are given so much freedom. I was able to come up with a theory to base my speech on, and as Patrick pointed out, it became a well balanced analytical point.

For this speech I did not go to the speaking center. Because of their policies on time frames I wasn't sure if they would accept me. But I had a fairly good idea of what I would talk about in my speech. Anyways, the speaking center workshops were able to give me some good ideas and techniques for my speech.

I have done some small speeches before, but as always there is some nervousness, it takes forever to get to you, and then its over too quickly it seems once you talk.

Friday, September 23, 2011

For this assignment I wanted to have fun with some of the ideas in my head. Several of the photos I shot in DC were of the Capital building which is massive. So I began to think about other massive objects, but I wanted something that made sense being in the picture.

The first step was to layer the Godzilla picture on top of the Capital one. Then carefully erase on the Godzilla layer until it's background and bottom were gone. After this step the picture was ok, but it needed something more. It needed a hero.

Enter Mishka! Mine and my fiance's new pet cat.

So then Mishka was layered on top of the other two pictures. The transform tool was used to angle his picture. Then his background was also erased to only show the background of the Capital. After this I thought that the sky should be darker for this epic battle. Using the gradient tool a layer above the Capital the sky was darkened without altering Godzilla or Mishka. Then on another layer above Mishka the polygonal lasso tool was used to give him laser beam eyes to help fight off Godzilla. And finally the hazy brush tool was used to highlight his eyes and the beams.